


you come back

by ThisJoyAndI



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: 2x17, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 20:56:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14144394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisJoyAndI/pseuds/ThisJoyAndI
Summary: (like i knew you would)'For years she has talked both Polly and Betty away from anything other than pale pink lips, pretty and demure like the Northside girls they were, and yet here she is, carefully studying her reflection in the car’s rear-view mirror as she swipes the dark lipstick across her mouth.'





	you come back

**Author's Note:**

> When FP tossed that gum tho... D E A D

**~~~~**It is the exact same shade of lipstick she used to wear when they were younger, convinced that the darker colour made her look older, someone worthy of respect. For years she has talked both Polly and Betty away from anything other than pale pink lips, pretty and demure like the Northside girls they were, and yet here she is, carefully studying her reflection in the car’s rear-view mirror as she swipes the dark lipstick across her mouth.

Her shirt is unbuttoned perhaps far more than it should be, her hair teased and tousled. She looks the very image of a confident woman, but her heart is thundering in her chest, her hands shaking as she caps the lipstick and places it back into her bag. What is she doing here? She hadn’t even been thinking when she left the high school, hadn’t realised that she was making her way to the trailer park until it was far too late to turn around. Isn’t it enough that she’s sworn to stop her slandering of the Southside? Isn’t it enough that she’s personally thanked Jughead and his friends? Isn’t it enough that she never got the tattoo on her hipbone removed, even though Hal could barely disguise his annoyance whenever he looked at it? Isn’t it enough that for the last twenty years, she has pretended to be someone she never was going to be – Alice Cooper, reporter, wife and mother.

Her mind might not know exactly why she’s here, but that doesn’t stop her body from exiting her car and making her way to FP’s trailer, heels stirring up dust as she walks.

\---

For a moment, he thinks it is a ghost at the door, the Alice that once was. The Alice who demanded to ride her own motorcycle rather than accompany one of the other Serpents on theirs, the Alice that railed against the Serpent dance and would have gladly undertaken the gauntlet if they’d allowed her to. The Alice who used to sneak into his bed in the months before Hal Cooper came into their lives, curling her body tightly against his and falling asleep almost instantly.

But then his eyes focus and he realises that it _is_ Alice, looking right at him, chin tilted slightly upwards as her piercing eyes meet his gaze. With dark lips and mussed hair, shirt unbuttoned, it is only the slight lines on her face that make him realise that the Alice standing before him isn’t the girl from his youth but the woman he would do anything for. He looks at her, and he doesn’t think anyone can blame him if his eyes happen to dart down to her exposed cleavage.

He watches her walk inside the trailer before he plucks the gum out of his mouth and throws it outside, easing the door shut. Alice always hated it when he had a mouth full of gum, and although a lot of things have changed over the last twenty years, he doubts that her abhorrence for what she told him was ‘a half-hearted attempt at oral hygiene, FP’ has faded in the slightest.

And he plans to kiss her so thoroughly that the lipstick currently staining her lips is entirely removed by the time he’s done. It’s the middle of the day, the kids will be in school for hours yet. They have all the time in the world, and judging from Alice’s expression she won’t be at all against what he plans to do with it.  


End file.
